The story of Lewis Blackman was very effective in showing how important communication is. As a peds resident, I watched the whole video looking at all the errors made from the resident perspective, but when listening to others comments, I heard nurses looking at it just from the nursing view and you realize in any medical error, each profession looks at what they could have done better and it seems that we are always hardest on ourselves in the situation. That ties into Jack Gentry’s story, that admitting your fault helps deal with our own turmoil we experience after the situation. So many times the hospital wants to protect their financial responsibility but in the end, things can go a lot smoother when you are upfront with the patient and their family. Listening to Jack Gentry’s story, I thought if that was my family member I would have been so angry and wanted to sue the hospital bankrupt, but then when you are faced with a hospital being truthful about the situation and taking responsibility, it helps you trust the situation more and some of the fury is consoled and a bad situation is saved from being worst and both the family and the hospital can cope easier. In the end, the medical team all wants the best for the patient, so any error that leads to a bad outcome effects everyone in the situation, including the medical personnel. By allowing the medical team to directly accept their fault and apologize to the patient and/or family can help the medical team deal with their own feelings and allow the patient family to continue to feel involved and not left in the dark. I hope to push this concept to any hospital I work with to help change the fear around medical errors and admitting faults.
